After the pain of GW/NW-065 Gamallt on the Sunday, Monday found us walking across the Barmouth Estuary railway bridge, and lunching in a leisurely manner at The Royal Ship Hotel in Dolgellau. The ardour of Gamallt had not worsened my sore achilles tendon. It was the same as it was before, so Tuesday dawned as a beautiful day and we made our way to the single parking bay for GW/NW-074, two miles south west of Dolgellau town. A narrow single track public road leads to the parking spot near Gellilwyd Fawr (Farm) at SH 707167. Parking place:
A track behind my car led through a metal gate and then swung right on a gradual climb to the summit. Once again I was accompanied by XYL Judy and the Lakeland-Border Terrier Treacle - her second summit in three days - she’s almost 14 years old, a toughie who is still climbing well - and on the lead at all times:
En route we passed an impressive miniature Welsh version of Stonehenge:
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The time taken to reach the mini-top (321m) was an enjoyable 36 minutes, without the need for a “photo stop”, as the climb was gradual - this is probably the easiest summit to reach on foot in the area. The coverage on Vodafone was good although the coverage on 2m was dreadful - my fault as I had left my handheld on the charger back at our cottage. I was hoping for a contact with Richard MW1HAX/P above me on Cadair Idris GW/NW-009 who was on the air just above me, but it was not to be and entirely my fault…
The usual dipole was deployed on a 5m travel pole - 60m through to the 20m bands were used with the band conditions in my favour, finishing with 42 HF contacts - 8 SSB and 34 CW. A stroll back down and then a drive to the other side of Dolgellau to a car park with toilets and picnic tables which was the start point to our afternoon summit activation of GW/NW-055 Foel Offwrm.
Probably the best place for it. It is not an easy summit for VHF. I used 150W of 2m SSB and a 5 element yagi on this one. A heavy load, but as you say, a gradual climb. I didn’t carry the big linear up Cadair Idris which was activated the same day.
Hi Chris
Thanks for your comments, one and all. I don’t generally record accurate RSTs in the SOTA database, generally the software I use to import a log defaults to 599 or 59 when I press enter, which suits me and its quick as less typing needed. So putting a tick indicates a good contact - report sent, report received contact complete. A couple of ticks is faster than writing down 599 599 in the midst of a mini pile up! Logging the callsign accurately and completing the QSO both ways with a 73/TU or EE is sufficient for me.
Noticed today and earlier in my week in Wales a good few CW learners just sending their callsigns randomly in the middle of a QSO which I am in progress with someone else. Also several op’s calling me when I’m transmitting in QSO to another station or when calling CQ. I listen on full break in so I hear this in my phones while I am transmiting. These few learner ops don’t appear to understand who is tranmitting or what the procedure in making a QSO is. I wonder if any other CW ops have noticed this happening?
Unfortunately yes, and also some people don’t appear to recognise their own callsign, for example today I was trying to work a specific but weak caller for whom I had only partial call. Despite repeatedly asking for only that station others just kept calling thus delaying the contact. I’m afraid I ignore the offenders (but inwardly curse them) until I have made good the QSO with the desired station, so please listen carefully and you WILL get in my log but ONLY when I call you.
Oh yes!
Last weekend, during my S2S with Jarek @SP9MA, I had to ask him to repeat up to 4 or 5 times his SOTA reference because other impatient chasers (with my same preffix), insisted in sending their calls several times on top of Jarek while he was sending me his SOTA reference. They were really strong and I’m sure they were copying me very well, but they didn’t seem to care about what I was saying or who I was having QSO with because, despite I repeatedly asked for QRX and said to Jarek SRI FER QRM everytime I asked him to please repeat REF AGN, thet kept calling and calling like ROBOTS.
I kept asking Jarek for repeats until the QRM finally stopped and I could copy Jarek’s SOTA reference. I could have looked it up on SOTAwatch, but I can’t let impatient chasers decide when a QSO is finished because I’m the only one deciding that together with my QSO partner.
After I got all the infos from Jarek and we finished our QSO, I had QSOs with those impatient chasers. I hope they finally understood they way things go.
Some chasers also have the bad habit of sending their call right after arriving to a spotted frequency without having even listened for a few seconds, not knowing if they actually copy the activator or the chaser he may be having QSO with.
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